


Miss Perkins and the Professor

by raspberriesnchocolate



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hidgens doesn't know how to socialise, Platonic Relationships, awkward small talk, but really neither does Emma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-15 07:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17524688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raspberriesnchocolate/pseuds/raspberriesnchocolate
Summary: Emma Perkins is Professor Hidgens' favorite student. It can't just be groceries, right?(This takes place before the musical. Also, their relationship is platonic.)





	1. Chapter 1

Emma Perkins stood in front of solid concrete gates, wondering for the seventh time whether or not she was at the right house or not. Seriously, this looked nothing like a house. It looked like the entrance to a prison mixed with what she suspected Area 51 to look like.

She pressed the buzzer, wincing at the coat of dust she dislodged with one motion.

“Who’s there?”

Emma cleared her throat, leaning in to respond. “Uh, Emma Perkins. I’m in your biology class? This is Professor Hidgens, right?” She inwardly cursed when the man didn’t respond immediately.

Her fears were soothed when she heard a faint, “ _Alexa, open the gates!_ ”

The gates slid open with a loud rumble, revealing a quaint little house with…

Emma blinked in shock.

Pots and pots of cannabis lined the path to the house, healthy and green.

Her professor came striding out, wearing bunny slippers and his regular turtleneck and khaki pants. Emma briefly wondered if that was his only outfit.

“Good afternoon, Emma!” His exuberant voice snapped her out of it.

“Afternoon, sir.” She replied, glancing back at the cannabis plants.

“So what’s the reason for the visit, Emma?” The tall man asked, clapping his hands together and looking at her expectantly.

Emma flushed, wordlessly holding up her essay. “It sounds stupid, but the grade for this was going to be late, right? And you don’t really hang out at college campus, so I just drove here to give it to you personally. To avoid the late grade.”

Professor Hidgens blinked in surprise, likely looking behind her at her beat up car.

“Are you aware that your license plate is falling off? Your front left tire is pretty deflated, too.” He remarked casually, taking the papers and flipping through them quickly.

“My- huh?” Emma whirled around and cursed. She hadn’t noticed that at all.

“Shit.” She muttered.

Her professor had a comical thinking pose, hand on his chin and everything.

“I have a pump in my la- _my garage_ \- if you need it.”

“Thanks, sir. I’ll take you up on that offer.”

They walked on the pathway, Emma’s professor reading her paper under his breath. She didn’t want to hear the large words she’d scrounged up in a thesaurus, so she hastily started some small talk.

“Sooo… Pot farm?” She began, arms awkwardly shoved in her pockets.

It seemed those were the magic words, and her Professor whirled around, a silly grin on his face. They stopped at the entrance, where he pulled her close and gestured to the cannabis surrounding them.

“Oh, Emma, you _must_ know!” Emma opened her mouth to ask what she had to know before Hidgens continued.

“Weed is the _future_!” He exclaimed, hands curled up into fists. Emma had always thought that Hidgens had a funny way of talking, as if he were always giving a monologue. Now that she thought about it, Hidgens would fit right into a Shakespeare play.

“Wow.” She replied with fake enthusiasm. The professor didn’t notice.

“It’s gonna be legal worldwide soon, just you wait! Hemp, blunts, everything! I’m starting early so I can benefit later, you see?”

Emma considered it. Well, it didn’t sound so hard. It was just growing plants and selling them. Sort of like a farmer, but for weed.

“I see what you mean. You’re getting a head start, huh?”

Hidgens looked overjoyed, and placed a finger on her nose. It then occurred to Emma that, maybe, just maybe, Professor Hidgens didn’t have much of a social life.

“ _Exactly,_ Emma!” He said before taking them into the house and to a door with a… a finger scanner? What the fuck? Who the hell was Henry Hidgens?

“Don’t touch a thing,” the professor warned before placing his index finger on the scanner. 

The door opened, revealing a lab, several tubes of random multi-colored liquids…

“Professor, why do you have a whole wall of fucking guns?”

She turned to see the man halfway inside a cabinet, wrenches, cables, and other knick knacks falling from where he was rooting inside.

Emma watched in disbelief as the man finally pulled out a handheld pump.

“Well, Emma, you can never be too prepared, now, can you?” Hidgens cheerfully answered.

They walked back outside to Emma’s ratty old car. It looked more like a broken soda can than a car, but Emma didn’t exactly have the budget to buy a new one.

Hidgens let out a whistle, and Emma had to stifle a snort. She suspected that he was going for a standard “wow that’s tough” whistle, but he added vibrato to the end. 

She winced, hoping to God that he wasn’t some musical freak. A quick glance at the tall man brought to her attention that the man had a strange gait. His hips swiveled and his head was held high. He always seemed to sit down during lectures, so she hadn’t really noticed.

Hidgens bent down to survey the tire, hmming and making a bigger deal than needed. Then, he just stuck in the pump and turned to Emma.

“This’ll take a while, I’m afraid.”

Emma sat down on the sidewalk next to him.

“It’s alright. Thank you, by the way.”

Hidgens had an odd expression on his face for a moment before he replied.

“You’re very much welcome, Emma.”

They sat in awkward silence for a moment longer, so Emma broke the silence.

“So, Professor, I was wondering about the.. Um.. the..” Emma made a vague sweeping motion with her hand at the electric, solid gates, and the tall concrete walls.

“I thought you’d never ask!” The man grinned down at her.

“Twenty nine years ago, I was stargazing with my trusty telescope when I saw it!” Emma reared back at the sudden enthusiasm.

“A phenomenon, caught by no one else! The stars… They were _winking._ ” Professor Hidgens looked up at the sky, even though they were in broad daylight, and no stars could be seen at the moment.

“Winking stars aren’t special in themselves, but by God, was this a special occasion!” Emma blinked owlishly at her biology professor. Maybe she should have kept talking about weed?

“Three winked at the same time, four times, equal time between each blip. Then, a group of stars nearby mimicked it. Perfect timing, not a single beat off.” He looked wistful, almost, at that.

“Beat?” Emma repeated.

“Yes, the beat. They were like metronomes, so perfectly timed. It was then that I saw the meteor.”

“The- excuse me?”

“It was very far away, and I witnessed it change course.”

“Then it wasn’t a meteor, right?” She tilted her head at the man.

Hidgens, now sweating (Emma privately wondered why he didn’t take his blazer off), tapped her on the nose once more.

“ _Exactly,_ Emma!” and then he continued talking about the meteor, somehow bringing up bars and measures.

Emma listened with half an ear, musing to herself. Even though he was batshit crazy, she rather liked the eccentric man. Maybe it was because of his constant, “Exactly, Emma!’s.” Maybe it was because he hadn’t yet insulted her. Emma personally thought she was a fuckup. She was never the successful sister, and after Jane’s funeral, staring at the flowers that Jane had requested in that silly bullet point diary, Emma had decided that she would make Jane proud. It hadn’t been going very well, her parents becoming bitter with her now that they couldn’t ignore her and focus on her sister. She was socially inept with a shitty job and a shitty apartment.

Emma glanced at Professor Hidgens, who was now done with her tire. The man didn’t seem to have a social life either. His place was something of a mess, plants overgrowing their pots and weeds and weed combining.

“Isn’t it fascinating, Emma?” Hidgens looked at her expectantly. She stammered out an answer.

“Uh, it ties together really, uh, solid..ly.”

Hidgens, as he had every time Emma had replied to him before, grinned and looked even more excited.

They then both looked at the inflated tire, Hidgens looking almost disappointed.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll see you Monday. It was great talking to you.” Emma smiled unsurely.

“I’ll see you then, Emma.”

Emma started the car and drove off.

Henry Hidgens gave an odd smile to the sky.

_“I’ll see you then.”_


	2. Groceries and Dirty Dishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma gets to know the batty professor, helping out where she can.

Emma had been given an extra tip the next day by a man with low blood sugar.

Money wise, she had actually been doing okay. She had enough money right now to buy twice as many groceries as normal.

So she went to the local store, full of cheap and mostly expired products. 

She paused, looking to the left at an isle of cheap party supplies. Golden stickers of stars hung in a plastic bag.

Stars…

Emma had a horrible idea. It would be weird. It would weird him out.

But then again, tapping someone you barely know on the nose would normally weird people out, too. So would wearing a blazer, turtleneck, and pants everyday in every season.

Emma shrugged and picked up an extra loaf of bread. Eggs were on sale today, good for her. Good for Hidgens, too. She grabbed two cartons of milk, the ones at the back that were the last to expire.

Finishing up her list, she headed to the cashier to pay for it all, unloading her cart into her trunk.

Emma drove to the barricaded house that Hidgens called home.

She pressed the buzzer again.

_“Who is it?”_

“It’s Emma again.”

Professor Hidgens didn’t reply, barking out an, _“Alexa, open the gates!”_ and rushing out.

Today, he was wearing a turtleneck, blazer, khaki pants, and bunny slippers.

“Hey, Professor. I wanted to pay you back for inflating my tire, so, uh..”

She hefted up the paper bags for him to see.

“Groceries, Emma?” The man looked overjoyed, “For me?”

Emma grinned sheepishly in response. “Yeah, those are, uh. These are for you?”

“You even got recyclable bags! Excellent.” Hidgens easily grabbed the bags, holding them on one arm while he guided Emma inside.

Emma looked around Hidgens’ messy living room while he unpacked groceries, lips quirking up every time Hidgens exclaimed about apples or carrots and things like that.

The fireplace was being used for storage, apparently. Emma looked up at the mantle, eyeing a picture of seven teenagers on a football field.

They all wore letterman jackets and big grins. Emma tilted her head at a lanky brunette in the middle. He looked like…

She slapped herself on the forehead. It was Professor Hidgens!

He held a helmet in his right hand, left arm around the shoulders of the boy to his left.

“I see you’ve found my high school pictures.” Hidgens said from behind her.

Emma smiled sheepishly. “This is you, right? Who are these guys?”

“Well…” The professor picked the picture up off the shelf, using his sleeve to dust it off. Emma looked closer at the teenaged Hidgens. He had brown hair and braces. She hid a snort. What a total dork. 

She snuck a glance at Hidgens, before glancing away quickly to hide a smile. Nothing had changed.

“Well, this is me. These were my old football buddies.”

Hidgens looked unbearably sad for a moment, and Emma squeezed his shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. Due to the height difference, she had to reach up quite a bit.

“This blonde with long hair right here is Greg. He was the quarterback. Here’s Stu. He was linebacker. Here’s Steve, Mark, and Leighton.”

The professor paused for a moment, smiling wistfully at the last man in the picture.

“This guy right here is Chad. He has a cast because he tried to climb the post and fell.”

He barked out a laugh, placing one hand on his stomach. 

“We all told him not to, but just to spite us, that fool jumped right up.”

His thumb brushed the dust off of Chad’s face, lingering for a moment as he smiled softly.

Hidgens put the picture back on the shelf next to his Alexa.

“What I wouldn’t give to visit the old stompin’ ground…” He sighed.

Emma squeezed his shoulder again. “Well, why don’t you meet up?”

Hidgens frowned.

“I’m quite sure they’re all swamped.. With business..”

Emma frowned in sympathy. All her friends had moved on to having families and careers as well. She was 29 and still in college.

“Stocks, bonds, _golden parachutes_ … I long for the old days, Emma.”

She patted him on the back.

“I know the feeling, sir.”

The professor gave a sad smile before snapping back into his excitable behavior.

“Enough of that, now. Sadness isn’t good for the brain, you know.” Hidgens seemed to be scrambling for a way to change the subject.

Emma took pity on the older man and scoffed. “And pot is?”

She was then launched into a deep conversation about how weed would affect the country’s future.

At some point, she brought up a hypothetical situation.

“Say a fire happens at my pot farm. Would I get high from the fumes?”

The professor blinked owlishly at her.

“I would hope you got out of there before you could breathe it in, Emma.” True concern shone in Hidgens’ eyes.

Emma laughed at the kicked puppy look and patted his hand (When did they sit down on his couch?).

“Thanks, sir. I appreciate your concern.” 

The professor offered an awkward smile before standing up with a flourish. Emma blinked at the sudden movement.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he announced, looking as though he were about to be crowned king. Emma wasn’t surprised. Professor Hidgens was dramatic in all he did.

Emma decided to look around more. She walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge.

A bag of carrots and a carton of milk tumbled down.

She cursed loudly and flailed to catch them. Hidgens really didn’t know how to take care of himself, did he?

The state of his fridge, along with his sink, and really, the rest of his house were a clear indication of this.

Well, it gave Emma something to do, didn’t it?

She was in the middle of organizing the chaotic fridge when Hidgens walked in.

“Are you looking for something, Emma?” The man questioned, stepping closer to look with her.

“Yeah, I’m looking for some order in this thing…” She muttered, continuing her task when Hidgens didn’t stop her.

“You’re… organizing my refrigerator? Why? I think it’s fine.” The man managed to inject a bit of petulance in his tone at this.

“Sir, I don’t mean to be crass, but, well…” Emma looked at the pouting face of her professor and sighed.

“So much shit just fell on me, man, you don’t even know.”

The man pouted some more before moving to the sink.

“I don’t suppose you’d do my dishes, Emma?”

Emma gave him a deadpan stare.

“Fuck no.”

Hidgens let out a sigh.

“Of course, that’d be rude of me to expect that from you,” The man stood in the doorway, back facing her, before turning his head at her and pouting.

“You don’t have to _help_ me…” He said, voice breaking in a sad decrescendo.

Emma groaned at the despairing tone and anguished eyes of the older man.

“Fine, fine! I’ll do your damn dishes, don’t look at me like that, sheesh.” She ignored the way he immediately clapped in happiness.

“Emma, you _know_ …” The professor coughed into his hand.

“What?”

“You may just find yourself with some extra credit if you’d vacuum the living room.”

Emma stared. “Are you suggesting that I clean your house in exchange for good grades?”

The man backtracked, losing his playful mood, regret painted on his pale features. Had he crossed the line?

“Sorry, Emma. That was too-”

“This better bump me up to an A,” She interrupted, dousing her hand in water and flicking it at him.

Hidgens grinned at her, exuberant and silly.

“You’re my favorite, Emma!” He said, before glancing at the sink and darting away. 

“Thanks, sir- _hey, what the fuck?_ ”

The leaning tower of pizza stained plates fell, revealing a stupid amount of crusty old dishes and cups and a few plastic utensils.

Emma scowled when she heard the signature “sshhkk” of the lab door opening and closing.

“Coward..” She muttered, before huffing and getting started.

Emma sighed and her scrubbing slowed, thoughts drifting to her sister, Jane.

She loved her, and Emma loved her back, but Jane always treated her like she was an anarchist on the edge of murdering innocent dogs for food.

She could almost see her in the reflection, a bemused frown on painted lips.

“Yeah, that’s right, Emma’s helping somebody out. Surprise, I’m not as evil as you think.” Emma smirked at the reflection.

“I’m a good person, too, Janey. You didn’t inherit it all, alright?” She whispered.

Emma scrubbed faster, a strange smile on her lips.

Of all the things Jane had done, of all the adventures she’d had, Jane had never done the dishes for a reclusive, batty old professor in his cannabis surrounded house.

“One redeeming point for Emma…” She thought, tossing a plastic fork in the trash.

The professor watched his security camera, listening intently.

His keys were pressed noisily, and a few minutes later, Miss Emma Perkins had earned herself twenty extra credit points for community service.

“One point, make it twenty.” Henry Hidgens hummed, smiling softly at the muffled curses of disgust coming from the kitchen.

“Good job, Emma.” He whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually didn't plan on updating, but I got kudos, which surprised me a whole heck of a lot. So here it is! I tried to keep em both in character.
> 
> If I update again, it'll be an angsty chapter. I might make that a separate work? Idk, just tell me what to do in the comments, please.
> 
> Thanks for the support and drop a kudos if you liked!
> 
> k thx bye

**Author's Note:**

> This is really more self indulgent than anything, but if you liked it, please let me know! Thanks for reading ok bye


End file.
